I will_!.

XIII

Suspense is the hardest thing to bear--what a ridiculous truism! It has
been said a thousand times before and will be said a thousand times
again!--because it has come to everyone at some moment, and so its pain
is universally understood. To have attained serenity would mean that one
was strong enough not to allow suspense to cause one a moment's doubt or
distress. I am far from serenity, I fear--for I am filled with unrest--I
try to tell myself that Alathea Sharp does not matter in my life at
all--that this is the end--that I am not to be influenced by her
movements or her thoughts, or her comings and goings--I try not to think
of her even as "Alathea"--And then when I have succeeded in some measure
in all this, a hideous feeling of sinking comes over me--that physical
sensation of a lead weight below the heart. What on earth is the good of
living an ugly maimed life?

It was ten times easier to carry on under the most disgusting and
fearsome circumstances when I was fighting, than it is now when
everything is done for my comfort, and I have all that money can buy.

What money cannot buy is of the only real consequence though. I must
read Henley again, and try to feel the thrill of pride I used to feel
when I was a boy at the line "I am the master of my fate, I am the
captain of my soul."

----What if she does not come back, and I do not hear any more of her?

Stop! Nicholas Thormonde, this is contemptible weakness!

* * * * *

This evening it was wonderful on the terrace, the sun set in a blaze of
crimson and purple and gold, every window in the _Galerie des Glasses_
seemed to be on fire--strange ghosts of by-gone courtiers appeared to be
flitting past the mirrors.

What do they think of the turmoil they have left behind them, I wonder?
Each generation torn by the same anguish which the worries of love
bring?--And what is love for?--Just to surround the re-creative instinct
with glamour and render it aesthetic?

Did cave men love?--They were exempt from pain of the mind at all
events. Civilization has augmented the mental anguishes, and pleasures
of love, and when civilization is in excess it certainly distorts and
perverts the whole passion.

But what is love anyway? the thing itself I mean. It is a want, and an
ache and a craving--I know what I want. I want firstly Alathea for my
own, with everything which that term implies of possession. Then I wa